There’s SO MUCH Baby — STUFF.

Baby stuff is inherently awwwwww-inducing cute because it’s small and therefore it’s adorable. Old me would be spending my entire paycheck already buying random baby things I see along the journey of pregnancy that capture my heart. Slightly less bad-with-money me knows that not only do I not need to buy a bunch of crap for my embryo/soon-to-be-fetus today, I don’t need that crap – ever.

My preliminary research into “baby shit” (not the literal shit, I’ll deal with that soon enough) — is that there are, not surprisingly, a zillion options for every item you may want to buy. Stroller? How about a foldable one so it fits in your tiny apartment? Or one you can jog with because – while you don’t jog much today, the visual of you jogging with your baby at the local park in the Tesla of Strollers is such a glorious thought? Maybe you should get an expandable stroller (possibly a good idea) so when you have a second kid, you can add a seat easily and not have to buy an entire new stroller in 2-3 years. But, of course, you’re then betting on having a second kid while the other one still wants to be in a stroller (that is the game plan, but with infertility and then maternal age issues, who knows if it will happen.) Get the expandable stroller and it’s heavier than necessary for one kid… why bother? Those jogging strollers sure look nice…

And how about where the baby sleeps? I want my baby to be comfortable — but is it just me or is it ridiculous to spend $200+ on a sleep situation that will last approximately 3 months of your babies life? Even $50 on a bassinet that lasts 3 months may be a poor financial choice if you can invest in a $200 crib that will last at least 2 years.

The good and bad news is that having baby in a one bedroom apartment means that we don’t have a lot of space for baby things. It surely limits us on how much money we’ll waste on nursery stuff… there won’t be much of a nursery to speak of. Luckily our 1 bedroom is quite large and the bedroom itself is huge. We selected the apartment a few years back because it was the only one we found with sizable rooms and a crap-ton of storage space (still no where to put my bike other than the living room, but plenty of shelving and closets.) The bedroom itself is large enough to fit our California King-sized bed, the clunkiest, ugliest in-room air conditioner you’ve ever seen (necessary in the summer, used by my husband year round, brrrr), a random exercise bike, and my husband’s office (desk, printer stand, etc.) It’s a big room.

My thought as of now is that we’ll move the bed out a bit more into the center of the room (against one wall) and turn the corner the bed is against now into the “nursery nook.” We’ll get some kind of side-sleeper arrangement or a crib (I’d prefer something that will scale with age and not last just 6 months or a year.) Some options I’m considering are The Baby Bay Bedside Sleeper ($365) and the Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper (~$200).

The other issue / positive thing is that all of these items will make their way to our baby registry, and some family members may contribute to our needs for baby. I hate to say it this way – but in the case of showers, you want to make sure you’re asking for things you really want and need. I kind of failed at this at our wedding (hello five sets of fancy Kate Spade China still sitting in their pretty hot pink boxes on our living room floor.) But, and this is going to sound horrible, you want to get the most out of the registry as well. For instance, your parents may decide to splurge on one really nice item for you — vs thinking about it as a total dollar amount. So they decide to buy your crib. Well, you can ask for a $50 bassinet that will last 3 months, or a $300 crib that will last much longer.

What I don’t want to do is ask for or get a lot of crap. I’m strongly leaning towards not finding out baby’s gender until birth (husband wants to know like, yesterday so he may find out early and taunt me until baby pops out)… but not knowing baby’s gender, besides making it a fun surprise at birth in that magical moment, also makes it much harder for people to buy you stupid gender-specific crap that you don’t need, like one too many light pink onesies.

In any case, my objective is to purchase (or request) as many items that will scale with age, and ideally last for baby #2. I say all this just 5w7d into my gestation and… miscarriage chances are still quite high, so I’m trying to not get too baby-crazed yet. But, y’all can tell, I’m a bit baby-crazed. My husband is too – in a different way. I’ve always teased him that he was “born a dad trying to be cool” and I have to hand it to him, he’s going to be an incredible father. Between just having a natural parental instinct and loving kids in all of their crazy, he’ll be a wonderful dad. And he’s been giddy like a school girl ever since finding out we’re pregnant. It’s totes cute.

Anyway, I guess this blog is transitioning into a mommy blog of sorts by default. I’ll still write about other stuff but right now I have to figure out family / baby finances. Given this blog is anonymous (I hope) I might start another public blog on raising a baby (those mommy bloggers can make some serious bank… this blog isn’t designed for making money, it’s designed for saving money — less visits to therapist, more ranting on HECC!)

So, in terms of what we actually need, there are lots of little items (bottles and such) but I think the primary things are:

somewhere to sleep (ideally that scales with age)

somewhere to eat (high chair)

super safe seat for the car (car seat)

stoller (ideally a small one that is portable)

changing pads (in lieu of a changing table)

baby carry thing (for doing baby yoga. haha. not.)

pack & play w/ basinet (for bringing baby to places other than the living room)

swing or jumping thing (I liked to jump as a kid – apparently I was given the name Mexican Jumping Bean. Is that racist? Eh, it was the 80s. Anyway, I want to see if my kid likes to jump too.)

Baby bath tub – not sure this is necessary, but super scared of baby drowning so having a smaller tub in the larger tub would be helpful.

I think that’s it? Other than the smaller items like the bottles and bibs and baby spoons and diapers and thermometer and such. Moms/Dads out there, what am I forgetting? Any advice on “must have” baby stuff? And what seems like a must-have but should be avoided?

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2 comments

my strategy is to buy a lot of well cared for used items as much as possible. bought my stroller and car seat new and in box on Ebay so i could skip paying sales tax. bedside co-sleeper on craigslist.. pack and play instead of crib.. and transition to toddler bed after they grow out of it. don’t buy many clothes yourself bc ppl love to buy them for you in huge piles 🙂

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About Me

The anti-minimalist: I'm the absolute worst with money. I have a shopping addiction. That's exactly why this blog exists. HECC is not a typical personal finance blog. I started it in 2007 to hold myself accountable for binge spending, a dropping networth, and lack of overall fiscal literacy. 10 years later, had achieved a networth of over $500k. Now my goal is to hit $1M by 40. Recently married and with my first kid on the way, things are about to get... interesting. I write about the intersection of mental health and money, spending & investing, and millennial personal finance.